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WirelessHD gets closer to a TV near you

imageNews this week that Panasonic and Samsung — the two leaders in plasma television– had invested in Sunbeam, a semiconductor company driving the WirelessHD standard, was another strong expression of support for the company that is using adaptive beam forming, and other technologies to enable mulcting high-definition wireless video delivery. Even SuNbeam’s competitors have praised its approach, but have said that it would take a long time for the technology to come to market, adding in that when 60 GH is ready for prime time, they’ll be there.. However, a recent blog post by Erica Egg at Net says that Wireless (as well as WHDI) products will be shipping by the first quarter of 2009.

WirelessHD is also backed by Sony and Sharp, so it will also likely appear in LCD televisions as well. One key difference between Wireless and WHDI is range with WHDI having more of a WI-Fri-like footprint. As a result, while both technologies will be marketed primarily as cable-replacement technologies within the home theater (as has been the case for Belkin’s delayed pre-WHDI FlyWire product), WHDI should be more interesting to convergence-minded home networkers wanting a theoretically more effective way then Wi-Fri of bridging the classic PC-TV gap.